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https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jun/28/muppet-power-rsc-puppet-legends-my-neighbour-totoro-staging-studio-ghibli-fluffy-monsters>
"Step into the Jim Henson Company’s Los Angeles office and a gang of doozers
from
Fraggle Rock greets you at the front desk. Fozzie Bear peers out from a
filing cabinet,
Sesame Street’s Big Bird poses in a giant rococo frame, and
one of Maurice Sendak’s wild things squats on a corner cabinet, hairs sprouting
from his nose.
But among these American puppet idols hanging around the workshop of Henson’s
company is an ornament that will delight fans of Japan’s Studio Ghibli. It is
the prowling catbus from its 1988 animated film fantasy
My Neighbour Totoro.
For the uninitiated, that’s exactly what it sounds like: a bus with fluffed-up
tail, furry seats and headlight eyes that speeds on to the screen, breaking
into a Cheshire grin and giving a wild miaow.
That must be one of the most anticipated moments in the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s upcoming London stage adaptation, which last month broke the
Barbican’s box-office record for sales in one day. Tickets got even hotter when
it was announced that Jim Henson’s Creature Shop would be making the puppets.
The show’s goateed American puppet master, Basil Twist, relishes the challenge.
“I’m glad people call on me to say, ‘How are we going to do this?’” He laughs
before jokily inserting his fist into his mouth.
I’m here to meet some of the
Totoro team but, this being the new normal of
theatre-making, Twist has Covid so joins us via laptop. The Creature Shop’s
creative supervisor, Peter Brooke, and fabrication supervisor, Scott Johnson,
let me rummage through the space where catbus and co will be realised for the
stage. There’s one room for mould-making, sculpting and mechanics; another for
foam and fabric – the basic materials that made Henson’s superstar Muppets. All
around are animatronic contraptions – Brooke and I work the handles of one
device to bring a puppet tentacle to startling life. Cables, laptops and a 3D
printer are cheek by jowl with glue pots, scissors and brushes, echoing the mix
of handmade and digital production techniques used at Ghibli HQ."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
